Snape Hall
by Sevie
Summary: Some thoughts about Snape's youth.


SNAPE HALL  
  
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, all rights J.K.Rowling  
  
NOTE: It was just an experiment to write as a German in my school-English. But I have tried to give my best!  
  
Nearly everybody in the little village was asleep. Only a farmer sat in the stable to watch after his pregnant cow. "We will have a thunderstorm tonight." he thought. The cattle became more nervous and the farmer lifted his head in direction of the castle "Bewitched!" he murmured.  
  
The wind blew over the roofs, it howled in the chimneys and bowed the trees. Clouds were drifted over the night-blue sky and for some seconds it was possible to see the moon, pale and light. Not far from the village stood the castle, a building from the 16th century, gray, majestic and cold. Nobody liked to go there even at a bright day; there was a saying that the lords living there were magicians or at least adorers of the devil. Everybody knew that Lady Christine survived her first and her second husband. After all she got married with Henry VIII and already survived him. At least since this time everybody was sure that she must have been a witch. The lords and ladies lived in the castle isolated from the village and the rest of the world; men were seldom able to see one of them.  
  
"Sinister rot!" the farmer told his cow, "White-faced and black-haired vampire-looking tribe. Not good at all! And now there's only the last of them, quite young but gloomy and scaring like the others. Would never go to the castle, never! Just evil things happening there!"  
  
The farmer was a simple man, glad with his few cows and sheep, his wife and five little children. But in one point he was right: in the castle really a lot of sinister things happened. The last lord only came home in summer for a few weeks, the rest of the year the building was empty. Except, of course, the bats, owls and spiders. Nobody guessed what really happen behind the thick ancient walls and of course nobody cared. The inhabitants of the village were too scared to be interested and they feared to be involved in the evil if they did so. The lady died years ago after she gave birth to a natural child and so the baby was left with his grandfather, the old lord, an angry and bitter man. He never talked to the boy about his father; perhaps he didn't knew much himself. The lady was very beautiful and the old's man whole pride and he never could forgive the child that he was the course why he lost her. Nor could he forgive the child's father. No man was worthy to get his daughter and than this, this... he wasn't able to find words to describe the man, who brought so much pain in the family. He had heard that this man was married and his wife was pregnant. She must have been a little bit difficult in this time so he tried to find a mistress. And he had found one. Poor darling! After his wife gave birth to his child he left her, also pregnant and lonelier than ever in the castle with the old man. It wasn't a good time for her, every month she felt worse and her father became more and more angry and hurting. Every minute of the day he told her what she has done, the honor of the clan was destroyed and it was only her fault.  
  
It was a sad time for her but it was hell for the child. He grew up all alone, sometimes he saw a servant but that was all. He was not allowed to go to school and had to learn in the library. His grandfather taught him everything he needed to know and not only this. "Curses!" Said the old man "You need to know lots of them! The world isn't a rose garden! The world is evil enough. And the only way to get trough it is to be stronger and faster than the others. In my opinion there is nothing you can say against the dark arts! Use them and you will have success!" So he showed him all curses, also the forbidden ones until the boy was able to kill a bunny with the 'Avada Kedavra' curse. After all living in the castle was no fun at all. No friends, no parents, no friendly words and only one wish: to come to Hogwarts as soon as possible!  
  
There were seldom moments were he was unable to sleep and then he thought, that anywhere outside this castle there must be a boy or a girl who was his half-brother or half-sister. His grandpa always said, that he was not looking very much like his mother (a fact that not really brightened up the old man's mood.) So perhaps the other child was also looking like his or hers father and when they would meet they would recognize at once. They would be great pals and everything would be easy... then he fell asleep and dreamt about a better life in a brighter world.  
  
The first evening in Hogwarts destroyed every dream he ever had. He tried to look over the crowd of children when he saw... There was no doubt! He was tall. He was thin. He had black eyes. He had black hair. And - gosh it couldn't be true! - The hair stood at the back of the boy's head like on his own. He was really glad the he have had let his hair grow, so now it lay on his head because of his weight. It was wrong! Everything was wrong! There was no joy in him, there was only hate. Hate, because the other boy had parents. Hate, because he had friends. Hate, because he stood there with a crowd of admirers. The other boy has had everything! And he? Nothing! A dark, cold castle, a hating grandfather and a few good lessons in curses, thank you very much!  
  
At this evening he thought life couldn't get any worse, but he was wrong. Everybody liked the other boy, named James. Nobody liked him. Of course, there was the Slytherin- gang but that was not what he wanted. They were no friends. They were just members in a gang to tease the others, especially Gryffindors. James had good marks; James was a great sportsman and James got...  
  
It was perfectly O.K. to him that nobody in this school was interested in pupils specialized in dark arts. It was fine that nobody wanted to know anything about dark lonely castles. He could live with no friends and people like Sirius calling him a "greasy, oily, slimy boy". But there was just one thing his heart was longing for: the most beautiful girl in school. He knew that he was not really handsome; that he was not good in Quidditch and that he was not popular. But he was clever and he knew a lot, he was able to brew any potion and would do anything to her. The day he heard that she had chosen an other boy he felt his heart fall. As he learned it was James, for some minutes he felt nothing. There was a frightening emptiness in his whole body. Then a fiery hot wave of pure hate came from the bottom of his soul and burned his heart.  
  
All the love he had kept in his heart for his brother all the years changed into hate. All the love he had for the girl turned into hate for her new boyfriend. And all the hate he had felt his whole youth until this day he gave into this hate-wave. But it was not that he hated the girl too. He loved her more than his own life and, standing in the tower of the castle in this stormy night, he recognized that his love for her was still fresh and full of tenderness like on this day many years ago.  
  
A lot happened in the following years. Too much and to hurting to think about in one night. She was dead. He knew that it would happen. He knew because it was the gang he was in that killed her. He told the headmaster of his old school but nobody was able to save her.  
  
Oh, how he wished there would be rain! The sultry lasted on his body like the memories on his soul. He wished that he could change the past but he knew there was no way in doing so. In the village a cow was lowing. Only in one farmer's house there was light. The storm was howling and the lowing within seemed to be the voice of a ghost. He felt the electricity in the air. Far away he heard thunder. At the horizon were lightening. An other summer vacation was over and tomorrow would start the new term. More accidents with friend Longbottom more wise answers from Miss Granger and more Potter. Damned! Why must he be looking like his father? Tall. Thin. Black-haired. And it was no luck he had the eyes of his mother. A memory of warm yellowish green came to his mind and a smell of the blossoms of the lime trees, of sun and whispering meadows.  
  
The rain started at the very same moment a tear was falling on the marble floor and a farmer was shaking his head, looking in direction of the castle and saying "Bewitched!"  
  
THE END 


End file.
